Anthony Ioannidis, SAC 09

2. User Experience
What is it?
Why should I care?
How does it affect us?

3. - Why user experience matters
In the next hour or so…
- How you can make $300 million in 1 year…
- Good (and bad) practice examples
…and help a few people in the process

4. My job
Help my clients improve
4
their customers’ user experience

5. Why does it matter?

9. Do you use Facebook?
(let me see hands, please!)
Have you looked at the privacy settings?
(hands again, please!)
Have you changed any of the privacy settings?
(Really?)

10. What the **** can go wrong with that?
(Remember this question, we’ll come back to it later)

11. Manipulating opinions

12. The obvious way

13. The obvious way

14. The obvious way

15. The obvious way

16. The less obvious way
U.S. Marines help an
Iraqi soldier with
water from a canteen
in Iraq
March 21, 2003
AP

17. Reportedly… (I found no evidence)

18. The not-at-all obvious way
For 1 week, in 2012, Facebook hid certain
elements from 689,003 people’s news feed
The aim was to see whether this manipulation
would affect users’ emotions
No informed consent was requested from or
given by the participants

19. The not-at-all obvious way
The experiment showed that emotions
expressed by others on Facebook do
influence our own emotions
In other words:
Yes, Facebook can manipulate people’s
emotions by cherry-picking what it shows
on their news feed
And no, it doesn’t have to tell you

20. The ‘innocent’ way
Extra gentle for the
most sensitive skin.
Start with ultra sensitive skin, add the chemicals
and moisture and you have diaper rash.
Baby diaper’s unique high-absorbency natural
blend cotton padding provides extra thick,
gel-free protection for your baby.
20

21. The ‘innocent’ way
Extra gentle for the
most sensitive skin.
Start with ultra sensitive skin, add the chemicals
and moisture and you have diaper rash.
Baby diaper’s unique high-absorbency natural
blend cotton padding provides extra thick,
gel-free protection for your baby.
21

22. The ‘innocent’ way
22
Extra gentle for the
most sensitive skin.
Start with ultra sensitive skin, add the chemicals
and moisture and you have diaper rash.
Baby diaper’s unique high-absorbency natural
blend cotton padding provides extra thick,
gel-free protection for your baby.

23. The ‘innocent’ way
23
Extra gentle for the
most sensitive skin.
Start with ultra sensitive skin, add the chemicals
and moisture and you have diaper rash.
Baby diaper’s unique high-absorbency natural
blend cotton padding provides extra thick,
gel-free protection for your baby.

24. The ‘innocent’ way
24
Extra gentle for the
most sensitive skin.
Start with ultra sensitive skin, add the chemicals
and moisture and you have diaper rash.
Baby diaper’s unique high-absorbency natural
blend cotton padding provides extra thick,
gel-free protection for your baby.

25. Which one can sell more diapers?
1 2
3 4
25

26. Images can influence us
Composites from actual eye-tracking data
26

27. Celebrities can influence us
27Post made: September 19, 2014
Joan Rivers passed away on September 4, 2014

28. What others do can influence us
28
!

29. The world according to Google

30. Actual Google UK suggestions
July 20th 2014
The world according to Google

31. But,
I hear you say…
…how do we know these things affect us?

32. Tools of the trade
Eye-tracking
User testing
A/B testing
Analytics

33. Eye-tracking…
What it used
to be like
What it is like
these days
33

34. …what we learn from it…
34

35. …and how it translates to $
And, of course, don’t forget our diaper ad…
35
More expensive
Less
expensive

36. Tools of the trade
Eye-tracking
User testing
A/B testing
Analytics

37. User testing
A friendly chat
with users about a
product or website
What they don’t
realise…
37

38. Does user testing work?
Air France flight 447 disappeared over the
Atlantic Ocean in July 2009
228 dead 38

39. Does user testing work?
Old-style cockpit:
If pilot is pushing forward and co-pilot is
pulling back, their forces are averaged and
the stronger ‘wins’ 39

40. Does user testing work?
New-style cockpit uses joysticks – no need to
apply any significant force to fly the plane
40

41. Now consider this:
• Pilot is pushing joystick forward
• Co-pilot is pulling joystick back
Should the plane...
• Go down (obey pilot – he knows best)
• Go up (obey co-pilot – pilot is drunk!)
• Average the two, as in the old design?
Airbus decided it makes sense to average
the two, just as the old design worked.

42. What the **** can go wrong with that?
It makes sense, right?
No need to test it, right?
228 dead
It was never tested with pilots…
42

43. Does user testing work?
02:13:40 (Pilot) “Climb… climb… climb…”
02:13:40 (Co-pilot) “But I’ve had the stick back the whole time!”
02:13:42 (Engineer) “No, no, no… Don’t climb… no, no.”
02:13:43 (Pilot) “Descend… Give me the controls… Give me the controls!”
To gain speed, the plane should have been in a descend.
The pilot had no idea the co-pilot was pulling it up...
It was never tested with pilots, because ‘it made sense’.
43

44. Let’s lighten up a bit
What’s an easy way to make $200 million in 1 year?

45. Tools of the trade
Eye-tracking
User testing
A/B testing
Analytics

46. Google’s ‘50 shades of blue’
In Google UK's former MD Dan Cobley’s
own words:
46
Seven years ago, Google launched ads on Gmail. In our search we have ads
on the side, little blue links that go to other websites: we had the same thing
on gmail. But we recognised that the shades of blue in those two products
were slightly different.
We ran ‘1% experiments’, showing 1% of users one blue, and another
experiment showing 1% another blue. And actually, to make sure we covered
all our bases, we ran forty other experiments showing all the shades of blue
you could possibly imagine.
“

47. Google’s ‘50 shades of blue’
47
And we saw which shades of blue people liked the most, demonstrated by
how much they clicked on them. As a result we learned that a slightly purpler
shade of blue was more conducive to clicking than a slightly greener shade
of blue.
But the implications of that for us, given the scale of our business, was that
we made an extra $200m a year in ad revenue.
“

48. OKCupid’s ‘50 shades of gray’
48
OKCupid run some experiments on their users:
• removed text from users' profiles
• removed photos
• told some users they were an excellent
match, when they were only a 30% match
and vice-versa

49. OKCupid’s ‘50 shades of gray’
49
‘Conversation’ = Exchanging ≥ 4 messages
70% increase!

50. It all started years ago
50
First large-scale A/B experiments run by
direct marketing (junk mail) companies
A mailshot can go to 10 million people with
5 million different permutations
• Stuffing an envelope with gifts or physical items makes
people more likely to open it
• Thicker paper can make a letter feel more important, so
recipients are likely to give it better attention
• Delivering garden furniture mailshots during sunny spells
resulted in 34% higher sales of outdoor products (IKEA)

51. P.S: Did you know?
51
• Even the use of a “P.S.”, in which the recipient is prompted to
get in touch with the company and make a purchase has been
tested, and is now considered best practice

52. But,
What’s an easy way to make $200 million in 1 year?
I promised to show you
how to make $300 million…

53. Tools of the trade
Eye-tracking
User testing
A/B testing
Analytics

54. Analytics
Every time you visit a website, we know
• How much time you spend on it
• Where you came from
• Where you’re off to
• What you are interested in
• How old you are
• Where you’re from
• What you did last summer
54

55. Analytics
55

56. Analytics
The old form: massive drop-out rates

57. Analytics
45%of customers had multiple accounts in
the system, some as many as
160,000forgotten password requests / day
75% of these never tried to complete
the purchase once requested
10
57

58. Analytics
The new form: no registration required
58

59. Analytics
After the change:
45% increase in purchases
An extra $15 millionin the first month
$300,000,000 in the first year
59

60. Three tips to improve user experience
(which you can actually use)

61. 1. Less is more
61

62. 62

63. 63

64. By the way…
Did you notice this section had no text?
You still got it, right?
64

65. 65
2. Signposting

66. Good.
66

67. Not.
so.
good.

68. Solving life’s little problems
A problem for busy airports:
- men’s aiming is very poor when using urinals
Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam found a solution:
- signposting
68

69. Erm…
Spillage reduced by 80%
(true story!) 69

70. SEGA took it a step further
“Toylet”
A game that rewards… good aiming
70

71. 3. Progressive
disclosure

72. Progressive disclosure
72
“An interaction design technique that sequences
information across several sections, in order to help
maintain the focus of a user's attention by reducing
clutter, confusion, and cognitive workload. By disclosing
information progressively, you reveal only the essentials
and help the user manage the complexity of feature-rich
sites or applications.
Wikipedia (again)

73. Progressive disclosure
A design technique that simplifies and
sequences information across several sections
Helps maintain a user's attention by reducing
• clutter
• confusion
• cognitive workload
Reveals only the essentials and helps manage
complexity
73

74. Manipulating behaviour
Manipulating opinions

75. Online vs offline
75
Interfaces that mimic the physical world
But what about human behaviour?

76. Do we behave the same way online?
76
vs
Real life

77. 77
Why the different behaviour?
Social media has taught us that it’s OK to do
‘creepy’ things online (follow, like, poke...)
‘Everybody’ does it, so it’s socially acceptable
We are influenced by what our peers do
‘Social’ sites take advantage of this

78. A good example
Showing this message
on Facebook drove
about 60,000 extra
votes in the 2010 US
Congressional
elections
Showing this one
drove a further
282,000 votes

79. A bad example
Facebook unlawfully used the names and profile
pictures of its users, including minors, to
advertise without obtaining their consent
1 class action lawsuit settled ($20 million)
1 more in Canada, recently ruled to be
outside the local Courts’ jurisdiction

80. In a student survey…
1. How happy are you?
2. How often do you go on a date?
If asked in this order
- correlation is only 0.11
If asked in the reverse order
- correlation jumps to 0.62!
80

81. Choice Architecture
We have the power to frame questions in a
way that manipulates answers
We have the power to nudge people to the
right (or wrong) direction
A force for good or evil? (Discuss)
81

82. Choice Architecture
How much would you like to donate?
- $10
- $25
- $100
- $500
- Other amount
- $50
- $100
- $500
- $1,000
- Other amount
82

83. Choice Architecture
Simply by rearranging food in a school
cafeteria, researchers were able to increase or
decrease consumption of particular foods by
25%
(We do that every day, when you visit your favourite websites
– we just don’t tell you)
83

84. Can you
change the world?

85. Getting people to exercise

86. Getting people to donate
Research in South Korea showed that about
89% of people wanted to donate
In reality only 0.9% actually did
How can we get more people to donate?
86

87. Getting people to donate
Minewater has two barcodes:
• Scan one, and you'll be charged $1
• Scan the other, you'll donate 10 cents
87

88. Getting people to donate
51% of customers donated in the first 2 weeks
Sales rose by 244%
88

89. Last video for todayBut possibly the most important
How can you change the world?
Some ideas on how to tackle your projects
(before you end up like this guy)

90. 90

91. Over to you…
Please sign up for 2 x consultations
Questions?

92. anthony@iasquare.com
www.twitter.com/iasquare
Thank you

93. Sources
• http://usableworld.com.au/2009/03/16/you-look-where-they-look/
• http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button/
• http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.2420180505/abstract
• http://www.smartinsights.com/conversion-optimisation/checkout-optimisation
• http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669720/how-lousy-cockpit-design-crashed-an-airbus-killing-228-people
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19571053
• http://soulpancake.com/
• Design Thinking video (edited), by Brettnewman, Wikimedia Commons
• Ogilvy & Mather Dubai, for the RSF campaign
• Crisis Relief, for the ‘Liking isn’t helping’campaign
• UNwomen.org, for the Google search posters
• Thaler & Sunstein, Nudge, Penguin books, 2009
• Animated gifs from giphy.com
All photos and videos © of their respective owners